Inside Line is reporting today that the Model S Signature Performance, the top-of-the-line trim level, is already sold out and Tesla Motors is no longer accepting pre-orders. Customers now wanting to purchase the Model S Signature Performance will have to be put on a waiting list.

The Signature Performance ups the ante with an 85 kWh lithium-ion battery pack (8-year, unlimited miles warranty). As its name implies, performance improves greatly with 0-60 times dropping to 4.4 seconds while the top speed increases to 130 mph. The maximum driving range of the Signature Performance is listed at 300 miles.

The first deliveries of the Model S Signature Performance will begin on June 22. Those who have ponied up for the standard Model S will receive their vehicles later this fall. Those who haven't already pre-ordered the standard Model S still have time to get in line; Tesla is still accepting $5,000 deposits for the vehicle.

quote: You can't compare to the past, as everything was different. To get out of the early 90's recession, the free market has increased private debt by 10% of GDP per year, and it continued up to 2007. All of that net debt went into production/services of some sort (otherwise it wouldn't have been borrowed). Now the private economy hit its debt ceiling and can't keep creating it at that rate, so its missing that 5-10% funding of the economy that it got used to for 15 years. We're not going to get unemployment back to 4% ever (unless you want to force people to take $3/hr jobs). This is all independent of government spending, BTW.

This is an example of why the thought that the government can spend our way out of a bad economy is flawed. If the private sector ran out of money, then the government will also if it tries to continue the course that is already failing, since the money which the government has also comes from the private sector(private sector is who pays taxes to fund the government). Now, if the government was sitting on a surplus of cash and decided to spend that thus putting part of a surplus back into circulation, then Keynesian economics might work to solve this problem.

Where your logic has problems( I realize it isn't just your logic, but is what you mentioned) is that it takes the private sector to fund the government which is then supposed to put the money back into the private sector to make it grow. Now if the government could somehow take in $1 in taxes, grow it to anything above $1+expenses and put that back into the private sector then we might be able to use this type of funding, problem is how would the government be able to grow the money without using devaluation to do so? If government workers worked for free so that there were no expenses for handling the money in the loop, you still only break even keeping the money at the same value, unless the government loans it out to someone else and collects interest on it, but to make that work the government has to loan it outside the economy it is trying to support and hope it comes back with enough interest to pump money back into the economy it is supporting.

Right now governments around the world are struggling and doing just the opposite of the above. They are selling bonds to make liquid cash to spend now, and will have to pay back interest on those later, that ends up being a net negative cash flow that the government will have to make up somehow in the future. Right now most governments are operating like people addicted to pay-day loans/check advances. They borrow more hoping to get out of debt, then have to borrow even more to pay the note due on what they borrowed before. There are only two ways out of that cycle. One is to cut your expenses to the point you finally have enough left over to cover the loan and pay it off. The other is to get a better job making enough money to pay off the loan. The US government is hoping for number two, in that they hope they can spark the economy enough to increase the tax base to bring in more cash. What happens though if that doesn't work? Then you are in the situation Greece is in where the only option left is to cut the expenses deep enough that you finally have enough money left over to pay off your debts. The absolute final option that no one wants to talk about is the same for governments as it is for the private sector, file bankruptcy.

What happens if you have taxed the people to the point they have no money left over after paying basic living expenses, then tax business to the point they have no money left over after paying their expenses and yet you still can not cover the cost of running all the government programs? At that point there is no money for the businesses to give raises to the workers, and no money for the people to buy more things to cause the economy to grow, and no money for higher taxes to be collected. Yet even at this point businesses want people to buy more of their products, and people want raises to be able to buy more products, and the government wants more taxes to be able to do more for the people. What can you do then to solve the problem? We need to think of that answer soon, since most of the world governments are headed to that point rather quickly. I guess we can hope for a solid gold asteroid to fall out of the sky and make one group super wealthy so that they spend tons of money and it spreads out around the world, but would we even then be wise enough to handle the cash flow so that we do not end up back in the same place we are now?

Look up the theory on the "Dept Wall", which says that we will soon hit the limit of easily available cash to fund governments, and the economy. At this point governments will have no more avenue for collecting taxes from the surplus money citizens have, but will then have to begin collecting money directly out of citizens pockets. Think of the stories like Robin Hood when the tax collector shows up and simply demands payment of taxes instead of taking a small percentage from your paycheck.

The theory that the "1 percenters" can carry the load is also rather faulty. Consider that the current budget being proposes by the executive branch calls for spending with a $1 Trillion plus deficit. If we had one thousand billionaires we would have to tax them an additional $1 Billion each to cover that. I don't think we have one thousand billionaires in the US right now. So let's step it down to cover all millionaires. For that we need one million millionaires to pay an extra $1 Million in taxes next year to cover that $1 Trillion deficit. Now maybe we do have one million millionaires in the US, but how much to all the people who have a million dollars actually make each year in individual incomes? If we set the tax rate for this group to 30% then they must have an annual income of at least $3.3 Million each year to just cover the $1 Trillion deficit, that would be in addition to what they already pay in taxes. If they do not have that much income, do we simply as them to write a check for enough to cover the difference they are short of the $1 Million out of their bank account?

It will definitely not be an easy and quick fix to this current economic situation, and those who promise quick fixes are not the ones we need to be voting into office any time soon. Doesn't matter what party they are from, if they claim a magic solution then they do not know what it takes to fix the problem and are only saying what they know we want to hear. The person who will stand up and tell it straight even when it is something hard to hear, that is the one we need.